While most South Africans have the lights switched off due to load shedding, it has not been that dull this past week at Eskom as sparks flew in every direction.
Earlier this week, outgoing CEO, Andre de Ruyter gave an explosive interview, talking about his time at Eskom, exposing the depths of corruption at the state-owned power utility.
A day after, the country’s finance minister, Enoch Godongwa announced during his 2023 national budget that government would help Eskom with its colossal R423 billion debt burden, by taking on R254 billion of it.
As the fallout from De Ruyter’s interview continued, the board of Eskom announced that the CEO would leave the state-owned entity with immediate effect.
On Friday, Eskom announced De Ruyter’s replacement and its new CEO, Calib Cassim.
It is not clear if Cassim will take the position permanently.
Cassim was appointed as Eskom’s chief financial officer (CFO) in November, 2018, after he served as its acting CFO from July 2017.
A stalwart of the power utility, Eskom said, “with over 20 years of service in Eskom, his qualifications and extensive experience have provided Cassim with a deep understanding and appreciation of the Eskom business and the electricity industry, especially regarding the challenges facing the financing of operations and future expansion of the industry.”
The new energy boss has been with Eskom since 2001, and was a former head of the utility's regulation department.
He became chief financial officer in 2018, replacing Anoj Singh, who was formerly a Transnet executive.
Singh is currently out on bail following charges of corruption during his time at the rail company.
A chartered accountant, Cassim completed his BCom at the University of Natal and his honours at Unisa. He has a master's degree in Business Leadership.
The job of Eskom’s CEO was already a tough one, as the country finds itself in its worst energy crisis in history.
Yesterday, Eskom confirmed shedding and curtailing a combined more than 7 000MW of electricity supply from the grid over the past two days.
Cassim enters the new position, with not only having to deal with the energy crisis, but also the corruption storm emanating from the former CEO’s explosive interview with e.tv.
De Ruyter, in the interview which aired on Tuesday night, said there was rampant corruption at the power utility and he said undisclosed ministers were interfering with operations at the ailing power utility.
He also said the undisclosed leaders from the ANC were aware of corruption that was happening at Eskom and also that the utility serves as the ANC’s “feeding trough”.
He also claimed criminal syndicates in Mpumalanga were stealing around R1 billion a month from Eskom, and nothing was being done about it.
De Ruyter also blasted and termed as “ridiculous”, that ANC leaders called each other “comrades” and used words such as ”lumpenproletariat”. He said they were stuck in Marxist thinking.
ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula slammed De Ruyter on Thursday, saying it was unfortunate that he had exposed his right-wing attitude and had opportunistically ventured into the political arena.
“Now that he has exposed his political standing and ideology, he should have stood back and not taken up the position,” Mbalula said.
Eskom board chairperson Mpho Makwana says the ousted CEO never once raised corruption allegations against an undisclosed minister to the board of the ailing power utility.
Makwana has also revealed that De Ruyter handed in his resignation in December, just days before he was due for a performance review with the board.
BUSINESS REPORT